Higher-order Linear Logic Programming of Categorial Deduction

We show how categorial deduction can be implemented in higher-order (linear) logic programming, thereby realising parsing as deduction for the associative and non-associative Lambek calculi. This provides a method of solution to the parsing problem of Lambek categorial grammar applicable to a variety of its extensions.Comment: 8 pages LaTeX, uses eaclap.sty, to appear EACL9

Anaphora and Discourse Structure

We argue in this paper that many common adverbial phrases generally taken to signal a discourse relation between syntactically connected units within discourse structure, instead work anaphorically to contribute relational meaning, with only indirect dependence on discourse structure. This allows a simpler discourse structure to provide scaffolding for compositional semantics, and reveals multiple ways in which the relational meaning conveyed by adverbial connectives can interact with that associated with discourse structure. We conclude by sketching out a lexicalised grammar for discourse that facilitates discourse interpretation as a product of compositional rules, anaphor resolution and inference.Comment: 45 pages, 17 figures. Revised resubmission to Computational Linguistic

Type-driven semantic interpretation and feature dependencies in R-LFG

Once one has enriched LFG's formal machinery with the linear logic mechanisms needed for semantic interpretation as proposed by Dalrymple et. al., it is natural to ask whether these make any existing components of LFG redundant. As Dalrymple and her colleagues note, LFG's f-structure completeness and coherence constraints fall out as a by-product of the linear logic machinery they propose for semantic interpretation, thus making those f-structure mechanisms redundant. Given that linear logic machinery or something like it is independently needed for semantic interpretation, it seems reasonable to explore the extent to which it is capable of handling feature structure constraints as well. R-LFG represents the extreme position that all linguistically required feature structure dependencies can be captured by the resource-accounting machinery of a linear or similiar logic independently needed for semantic interpretation, making LFG's unification machinery redundant. The goal is to show that LFG linguistic analyses can be expressed as clearly and perspicuously using the smaller set of mechanisms of R-LFG as they can using the much larger set of unification-based mechanisms in LFG: if this is the case then we will have shown that positing these extra f-structure mechanisms is not linguistically warranted.Comment: 30 pages, to appear in the the ``Glue Language'' volume edited by Dalrymple, uses tree-dvips, ipa, epic, eepic, fullnam

A study of cohesion in international postgraduate Business students’ multimodal written texts: an SF-MDA of a key topic in finance

Empirical research studies of finance students’ language use have investigated students’ performance in finance courses and the effect of class attendance on students’ performance.Similarly, research on accounting students’ texts has been directed at readability of accounting narratives and lexical choices. Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) based research in multimodal communication and representation has been confined to school and workplace contexts. Whereas multimodal communication investigations in tertiary contexts has been conducted across the fields of mathematics, science and computing, and nursing, business courses have not been explored. The purpose of this paper is to report on a case study designed to investigate the key multimodal academic literacy and numeracy practices of ten international Master of Commerce Accounting students enrolled at an Australian university. Specifically, it aims to provide an account of the salient textual and the logical patterns through the analysis of cohesive devices in a key topic in the Principles of Finance course, namely capital budgeting techniques and management reports. This study is pertinent as most international ESL/EFL students’ enrolments in Australia and elsewhere is in business programs. This study is underpinned by Halliday’s (1985) Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) approach to language and Halliday and Hasan’s (1976) cohesion analysis scheme. The study employs a Systemic Functional Multimodal Discourse Analysis (SF-MDA) for the analysis of cohesive devices in the participants’ multimodal texts. Lexical cohesion formed the largest percentage of use, and in particular repetition of the same lexical items, followed by reference.The findings contribute to the description of the meaning-making processes in these multimodal artefacts. They provide a potential research tool for similar investigations across a broad range of educational settings. Implications of the findings for finance students and educators are finally presented

Using an ontology for guiding natural language interaction with knowledge based systems

Des dels anys 80, els sistemes basats en el coneixement, programes que utilitzen una gran quantitat de informació per modelar situacions i resoldre problemes, han adquirit gran importància en el camp industrial, financer i científic. La complexitat d'aquests sistemes fa que el seu ús presenti més dificultats que altres aplicacions informàtiques. La comunicació entre els sistemes basats en el coneixement i l'usuari presenta, doncs, nous reptes. Tot i que el llenguate natural es especialment apropiat per comunicar-se amb aquests sistemes, són pocs els que incorporen interfícies en llenguatge natural. Els motius principals són els problemes d'eficiència que presenta el processament del llenguatge natural i l'elevat cost de desenvolupar les bases de coneixement (conceptual i lingüístic) necessàries per a cada aplicació. L'objectiu d'aquesta tesi és millorar la comunicació en llenguatge natural amb els sistemes basats en el coneixement. Aquesta recerca s'ha centrat en el disseny d'una representació reutilitzable dels diferents tipus de coneixement involucrats en aquesta comunicació, que permetir de generar de forma automàtica la interfície més adequada per a cada aplicació. S'ha desenvolupat un sistema, GISE (Generador de Interfaces a Sistemas Expertos), que genera interfícies en llenguatge natural per diferents tipus d'aplicacions. Aquest sistema adapta automàticament les bases de coneixement lingüístic generals als requeriments d'una aplicació concreta, obtenint la gramàtica més apropiada. El disseny del sistema està basat en una representació reutilitzable i modular dels diferents tipus de coneixement necessaris en la comunicació en llenguatge natural. Aquesta informació consisteix en els conceptes de l'aplicació, les tasques de comunicació, el coneixement lingüístic i les relacions generals entre el coneixement conceptual i la seva realització lingüística. Tres bases de coneixement s'han dissenyat per representar aquesta informació: la ontologia conceptual, la ontologia lingüística i un conjunt de relges de producció. El coneixement conceptual s'ha representat en la ontologia conceptual. Aquest coneixement inclou aspectes sobre el domini i la funcionalitat. Tota la informació necessària per modelar l'aplicació i tots els possibles actes de comunicació estan representats en la ontologia conceptual. La complexitat dels sistemes basats en el coneixement fa necessària una representació formal i explícita de la seva funcionalitat i domini.El coneixement lingüístic general necessari per expressar en llenguatge natural les possibles tasques del sistema es representen en la ontologia lingüística.La informació que permet relacionar el coneixement lingüístic general a una aplicació concreta per tal d'obtenir la gramàtica més adequada es representada mitjançant un conjunt de regles de producció.L'organització modular dels diferents tipus de coneixement que intervenen en la comunicació facilita l'adaptació del sistema a diferents tipus d'aplicacions i usuaris.Les gramàtiques generades pel sistema GISE utilitzen un llenguatge alhora ric i precís, adaptat a l'aplicació. La interfície del sistema incorpora un sistema de finestres que guia a l'usuari a introduir les opcions en llenguatge natural que el sistema reconeix.GISE s'ha aplicat a diferents sistemes: a SIREDOJ, un sistema expert en lleis i a un sistema que dóna informació sobre trens.Since the 1980's, knowledge based systems (KBSs), programs that use knowledge to model situations and solve problems, have spread throughout industry, finance and science. Human communication with these systems deals with complex concepts and relationships that are not present in other software applications. Allthough the natural language (NL) is especially appropriate for expressing these concepts, there are not many KBSs incorporating NL interfaces. The main reasons for this are problems of efficiency in NLI performance, lack of adequacy to the communication needs of the applications and the high cost of developing and maintaining them.The aim of this thesis is to study how the communication process and engineering features can be improved in NL interaction with KBSs. This study has been focused on the efficient and reusable representation of the knowledge involved in NL communication with KBSs. GISE (Generador de Interfaces a Sistemas Expertos), a system supporting NL communication with KBSs has been developed. This system adapts the general linguistic resources to application requirements in order to automatically obtain application-restricted grammars. The main issue of the system design is a separate and reusable representation of all types of knowledge involved in communication with KBSs. This knowledge consists of the application knowledge appearing in the communication, the tasks of communication, the linguistic knowledge supporting their expression and the general relationships between conceptual knowledge and its linguistic realization. Three general bases were designed to represent all this knowledge : the Conceptual Ontology (CO), the Linguistic Ontology (LO) and a set of control rules.Conceptual knowledge is represented in the CO. This conceptual knowledge includes domain and functionality issues. All knowledge required to model the applications as well as the description of all possible communication acts is provided in the CO. The CO is the skeleton for anchoring the domain and the functionality of the applications. The complexity of KBS performance makes a formal and explicit representation of their domain and functionality necessary. The general linguistic knowledge needed to cover the expression in NL of the tasks the system performs is represented by means of the LO and a set containing all possible realizations of the application terms. The LO is domain and application independent. The control information to relate the general linguistic knowledge to conceptual application knowledge in order to generate the application-restricted grammars is represented by a set of production rules. The modular organization of the relevant knowledge into separate data structures provides great flexibility for adapting the system to different types of applications and users.The grammars generated by GISE use expressive and precise language tuned to the application and adapted to the evolution of the communicative process. A menu-system to guide the user in introducing the NL is integrated into the GISE interface. GISE has been applied to a couple of applications: SIREDOJ, an ES in law and a railway communication system

The representation-cohesion-stance hypothesis

Peer reviewe

"Too close to call" : CNN's politics of captions in the coverage of the Florida Recount

Proceeding chronologically in terms of the events covered, Raimund Schieß in his paper „Too close to call: CNN’s politics of captions in the coverage of the Florida Recount“ focusses on Nov. 11, 2000, when the Bush campaign applied to Miami Federal Court to stop the manual recount of ballots which had been started in some counties. The paper studies the discursive practices employed by the CNN journalists to construct a particular version of the events, focussing on captions, i.e. the lines of text inserted at the bottom of the tv screen, and on the way in which they interact with the other verbal and visual components of the television text. Raimund Schieß concludes that captions, far beyond providing mere details of a speech event (who is talking to whom about what, where and when), are used to select, to highlight and hide, and thus to invite a preferred interpretation of the event. He is also able to show that captions are often employed to exploit a story’s potential for drama and sensation. His detailed micro-analysis of the verbal and visual dimensions of the television text is supported by careful documentation of the data, either through screen shots or via transcriptions of the stretches of broadcast discussed